Last week saw the publication of the Major Projects Authority annual report, the result of the collaboration between the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and departments aiming to significantly improving the delivery success rate of major projects across central government through monitoring and the opening up of public data.

DCMS attribute no spend on Urban Broadband Fund in 2012/13 to “the need to refocus the cities’ plans in light of the difficulties in gaining EU State Aid approval. DCMS has agreed a budget re-profile with HMT which has brought the budget profile into line with forecast expenditure.”

On the delay to BDUK’s wider delivery programme: “Currently the supplier dates for implementation of some final connections stretch beyond March 2015 and BDUK are working with suppliers to draw these back where possible.” It should be noted that BDUK’s procurement pipeline is running to schedule with 26 of 43 projects in procurement and 17 are now in implementation phase.

Cabinet Office Secretary Frances Maude’s comments on the MPA drive seem particularly pertinent in a number of these projects: “By their very nature these works are high risk and innovative. They often break new ground and dwarf anything the private sector does in both scale and complexity. They will not always run to plan. Public scrutiny, however uncomfortable, will bring about improvement. Ending the lamentable record of failure to deliver these projects is our priority.”